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The 2013 season has arrived, and the Chicago Cubs open it up in Pittsburgh. It’s possible these will be the two teams fighting over last place in the NL Central come September, so don’t sleep on early April.

By way of reminder, the Series Preview hooks you up with what you need to know about every series this year – streaks, broadcast information, pitchers, expected lineups, etc. That way, if you want to check only one place to get a sense about an upcoming series, or to plan ahead, you’ve got it. There’s also some fun stuff, because fun stuff is fun.

We’re Going Streaking

The Cubs finished up the Spring with a loss and a tie in Houston (well, that was kind of still the Spring), and were 16-19-2 in total. That’s a .457 winning percentage, which would translate to 74 wins in the regular season. Sounds about right.

The Pirates were just 13-18 on the Spring, so they are clearly worse than the Cubs.

Game Times and Broadcasts

Monday, April 1 at 12:35 CT on WGN.

Wednesday, April 3 at 6:05 CT on CSN.

Thursday, April 4 at 11:35 CT on WGN.

Expected Starters and Lineups

These lineups are likely to be pretty close to what actually gets fielded, but you’ll want to check each day’s Pre-Gamin’ post for the actual lineup.

Hot or Not and Whom to Watch

This Spring, your Cubs OPS leader among the guys who made the team? It was David DeJesus at .991. Starlin Castro was next at .913. Hopefully Brent Lillibridge’s .889 holds up into the regular season.

Anthony Rizzo’s .588 OPS brought up the rear among the starters.

Rule 5’er Hector Rondon led the staff in ERA at 1.80. Scott Feldman brought up the rear at 11.25.

Spring stats are already of tenuous importance, and, since they aren’t the Cubs, I will spare you the Pirates’ fake numbers. Andrew McCutchen is very good at baseball. There. You know what you need to know.

Series She-View

The Series She-View is one beautiful woman representing the Cubs taking on another (usually) beautiful woman representing the opponent. The Cubs’ representative will change as the team’s needs change – in other words, if the Cubs are winning, the rep will stay the same. But if the Cubs’ performance calls for a change, someone new will step in. The opponent’s representative will change from series to series, at my whim. But at least she’ll probably be wearing the opponent’s colors or have some connection to the team or something like that. It is immature, and the connection to baseball is tenuous at best. These things, I know.

Caption the Enemy

A new feature for the Series Preview this year – since folks on the Internet can’t get enough of cracking wise about pictures, I thought it might be a fun addition to the Series Preview. I’ll drop in a picture (hopefully one ripe for captioning), and you’ll drop in your clever captions into the comments. Then, if there are good ones, we can meme-ify them for use down the road.

Did you step in something, or is that just the Cubs potential this year?

willis

Let’s go…Can’t wait to see the team in action. 1-4 this lineup us actually very strong. JUst hope the pitching can hold up. Looking forward to seeing Shark mow them down today. Would be nice to get started with a W.

andrewmoore4isu

“we are going to be bad to get a draft pick!! shhhhhh”

http://www.justinjabs.com/blog/ justinjabs

Barney on the DL, per the reporter corps tweets.

DarthHater

His scrappy image is gonna take a hit. If he had true scrap, he’d shake off the injury unless the cut was down to and THROUGH the bone!

hansman1982

Ehh, the actually good defense hurts his sCRAP+ more than anything.

But, but, but, remember that time, when this other guy got his arm chainsawed off and still played! PLAYERS USED TO BE AWESOME!!!!!

Good Captain

Precedence is on your side. Monty Python’s Black Night wouldn’t have gone to the DL for a silly flesh wound.

DocPeterWimsey

Now, how much longer until someone regales us with a tale about a rugby player he knew who played a full match with no arms and on leg, winning by bleeding on his opponents?

hansman1982

BAH, how dare you say a rugby player would bleed because of an injury. That is the blood of the innocents sacrificed to the gods flowing out of them because it is not worthy!

DocPeterWimsey

You are right, of course: he would cauterize the wound with a hot iron rod and *then* use that same smoking hot rod to mull a mug of ale. God save the queen!

DocPeterWimsey

Doing it all with his teeth, I might add: he’s got no arms!

Mr. Brent Kennedy

As a current rugby player I assure you none of that is hyperbole. You are allowed three minutes in the “blood bin” for cauterizing and what not. God save the queen!

Nomar’s Left Glove

Tis but a flesh wound

Curt

Wow what a nice triple A line-up the cubs are fielding just out of curiosity how bout the over/under on the cubs hitting 120 home runs this yr.

Beautiful BN Apparel

BN on Video

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